The New Girl In Town
by Summerlea
Summary: When Kairi Segur moves to Twilight Town, popular senior Riku Orlovsky's perfect little world begins to crash around him. The worst part about it is it's not even because of Kairi. YAOI. AU. Highschool. Rated for LANGUAGE.
1. Chapter 1

The New Girl In Town

**A/N:**  
Be gentle on this one, guys. Not only is this my first time really writing a fanfic as not-Axel, BUT it's also my first time ever writing anything in first person. I'm not usually a big fan of it, but when I started writing this it was just how it came out and I didn't want to force it otherwise.  
I WARN YOU NOW, INCASE YOU CANNOT READ PROPERLY:  
THIS IS NOT RIKU/KAIRI.

THIS IS YAOI.

THAT MEANS BOY ON BOY ACTION.

Also, just to make a few of you sad, this is not Riku/Sora either. Fuck your main-stream pairing.

_and she's got a way of makin'__a boy act like a clown  
__whoa-whoa, whoa-whoa, whoa-whoa, whoa-whoa  
we don't know what to do  
'bout the new girl in town  
the new girl in town  
seems to dance on air  
the new girl in town  
she's got the coolest hair  
_

People always said that high school doesn't matter. That it's only four years out of your life, three in some places, and the person that you are in high school does not define you outside of high school. That popular preppy bitch who always got her way all the way through school won't survive in the real world, and that nerdy kid who no one likes will end up owning a multi-million dollar corporation that most of his classmates will work for. Everyone who was a someone in high school will be end up being a no one after graduation.

And while I'm sure most of that's true, I can't say that I personally agree. Maybe that's because I'm still in high school, and maybe it's because I've spent the last seven years of my educational career being the top fucking dog. But if that one ultra gorgeous popular girl can twist the rest of the school around her finger for four years, I don't see why she couldn't keep doing it after those four years.  
While I may not be female, I think it's safe to say that I'm ultra gorgeous and popular, and I have no intention of becoming a nobody.

Remaining popular and adored however, is looking a little more grim ever since Kairi Segur moved to Twilight Town.

* * *

_Hey look out for that moving van  
driving down our streets  
you better lock up your man  
before he meets-  
the new girl in town  
who just came on the scene  
the new girl in town  
can't be more than sixteen..._

12:32 pm.  
Destiny High cafeteria.

Why is lunch food so disgusting? Since the dawn of time or maybe just elementary school it's been the same vaguely discolored lumps of what we're told is calzone or meatloaf. It hasn't changed yet, which strikes me as a bit ridiculous. If the school can afford to put in those 'smart boards' instead of dry erase marker boards, why the hell can't they afford to feed us something that's actually edible?

It hasn't changed since elementary school, when the wonder and innocence of starting school was destroyed at lunch time. No, I stopped actually eating lunch at lunch-time. The hot food was questionable and bringing anything from home was not only incredibly un-fucking cool, but usually just as disgusting by the time lunch actually rolled around.

So I didn't eat. And since I didn't eat, not eating when you had a period dedicated to eating became the cool thing to do. The table I sat at during lunch – you know the one, with all those pretty popular people that you and anyone else wouldn't dare to approach on their own – was filled with my friends, the most of which didn't eat.  
Except, of course, for Sora.

At the moment I was sitting across from my best friend, watching with disbelief (though my expression remained apathetic – there was nothing cooler than apathy) as he shoveled questionable cafeteria food into his mouth.  
"So," I started, tone a bored drawl. "Do you need to put weight on for a match this desperately, or do you just like living on the edge?"

Sora looked up in confusion, a fork full of what was supposed to pass as mash potatoes lingering too close to his already stuffed mouth. "Whu?" A bit of broccoli escaped through his lips in the process. I tried not to look as disgusted as I felt.

After a few seconds he swallowed and lowered his fork, glancing over his tray of 'food'. "It's not that bad, Riku," He began, frowning. "Just because it's not any of that health food stuff that your mom always buys doesn't mean it's horrible."

"Hey, I'm not a snob. This," I waved a pale hand at Sora's tray. "Is not food. – I mean, what is that even supposed to be?" I jutted a finger at a mass of green in the left corner of the tray. Sora looked at it and did not respond.

"Exactly my point," I concluded, smirking. Sora heaved a heavy, unnecessarily dramatic sigh and pushed his plate of food away from him, defeated. "Snob," He muttered under his breath. I chose to ignore him, looking up instead when a tan boy with striking blonde hair dropped into a chair beside me.

"Hey, you seen the new girl yet?" Tidus asked, grinning and leaning back in his chair, kicking his feet up on the table. Of course, the new kid. High school law deemed that new kids were always the topic of conversation, at least for a few weeks. If said new kids were lucky and they got pulled into my clique, then they wouldn't have to suffer the uneasy transition of moving to a new town and starting up school with no friends for very long.

But I'd seen this one too many times before, and new kids were no longer interesting. I leaned forward, propping my elbows up against the table and tried not to look too bored at the sudden topic of conversation. Sora, on the other hand, had full attention on Tidus.  
Taking our silence to be a big fat 'NO', Tidus went on. "Yeah, Wakka said he has English with her. Says she's pretty hot, though I haven't seen her myself."

Sora's face dipped into a bit of a frown and he glanced to me. I knew that the change in expression was because Tidus was heavily involved with that girl Yuna. Via uncaring shrug, I said, _Not our problem._ Sora's frown deepened but he returned his gaze to Tidus.

"He said her name's like, Kairi....something. I dunno. Short little red-head, though," Tidus continued, leaning his chair back so it was supported on just it's back two legs. "So if you guys see her, lemme know."

"Kairi?" Sora repeated, looking curious again. He leaned back in his own chair and cast his baby blue eyes around the cafeteria, probably trying to spot the mysterious red-head.

I began to rip strips of paper out of the edge of Sora's notebook that was lying between us, feeling bored again. "Why should we let you know? She isn't going to fuck you." I paused, contemplating it. "Unless she's really desperate for popularity."

Tidus flashed a cheeky grin. "They all are, my man."  
Across from me, Sora had gone beet red. I cracked a bit of a grin and turned away, leaning sideways in my chair to look over the student body scattered about the cafeteria.  
Typical high school lunch room. We looked like a school out of a cheesy teenage movie, except all of the kids here were all actually teenagers and not just 20 year old actors who passed off for sixteen. Our cliques were so obvious that it was a little sad, with everyone broken up into their own little social circle tables.

First there was my table – the popular kids. There was Sora, Tidus and me. Further down the table were the cheerleaders, who all looked the same and were therefore nameless to me, aside from the head cheerleader, Yuna, and her cousin, Rikku, who didn't seem like she was cheer material in the first place. The third cheerleader who's name I actually knew, Paine, didn't sit with us because she couldn't give a shit. She got roped into cheering by her two school-spirited friends. They were chatting away with a handful of the stereotypical jocks – Wakka, Seifer, Rai, Zell, and a few others who's names I could never really remember.

Our table also attracted just the plain popular, rich girls, like Tifa, Selphie, and occasionally Fuu – who wasn't really very popular but was allowed because she was practically attached to Seifer's hip. There was also Zack, who's position around the table changed daily. Today he was lounging back by the Gullwings, keeping up with Rikku's train of thought and occasionally sneaking glances to the 'misfit' table all the way on the other end of the cafeteria.

Our table was in the very middle of the lunchroom, probably so everyone who wasn't as cool as us could sit and bask in our glory. Or something like that.  
After the jocks, the cheerleaders, and the popular kids, there was Sora's twin brother's group of friends. Roxas, Olette (who occasionally drifted over to hang out with Selphie), Hayner and some fat Asian kid. There was also Namine, who's name I only knew because I sat beside her in History, but she was just as often found sitting with the art kids as 'The Usual Gang' or whatever the fuck it was they called themselves.

Then there was the artsy kids, who excelled in generally everything from painting and drawing, to sculpting and acting. Their group was a decent size, but I only knew a few of them by name, which was fine because interacting with the art kids was always something regrettable anyways. The one thing I did know from this experience was that the majority of the artsy kids were hopelessly in love with the main art teacher, Mr. Valentine.  
There was Namine, some senior brunette who's name I think was Aeris, and a junior named Penelope or Penelo. She was usually seen with Vaan, who was too social to handle sticking to just one clique.

Past the the artsy kids was a smaller, round table that held only a handful of students. They usually had books and papers spread out all over their table, and sometimes opted for doing homework rather than actually eating. They were the kids who got straight A's and were otherwise known as teacher's pets. A few of them were alright, and probably could have even jumped into popularity if they didn't care about their grades so much. Here there was the dark skinned senior, Baralai, who was also class president, along with Quistis, also a senior and very possibly his vice president if they even did that in school elections. That just goes to show how much I pay attention to that type of stuff. Olette, her fat friend, and the blond with the pig-tails – Penelo, were occasionally found sitting here as well, and would probably over-take the table once they became seniors and felt the need to cram for SATs.

Then there was a small group of kids who's names I didn't know. They were three guys, brothers, I think, since they all shared the same silver hair and affection for wearing strictly black. They hung out by themselves, not even really accepted by the group of misfits who sat one table over. I'd had a conversation with one of them before, the bigger of the three, and he didn't seem like he was entirely all there. Kept bringing up the subject of his mother.

The stoners, or the burnouts, didn't really have a table. They varied from sitting out in the hallway outside of the cafeteria, to crashing at other tables, and to sitting by and on the window-sills of the cafeteria. There was Gippal, a very out-of-the-box thinking senior that Rikku had known pretty much all her life and seemed to be in love with. Judging by Gippal's lack of care, he was probably unaware of this and most likely didn't care.  
Along with Gippal there was Irvine, a sophomore that I didn't know much about, and two juniors – Baralai and Fran, who were also more or less inseparable. The stoners were alright for the most part, since most of them didn't start shit, but they tended to fall more towards the apathetic viewpoints of the misfits when it came to school.

Last of all there was the misfits, or the rebels, or the punk kids. Whatever you wanted to label them as, they fit the description. They were anti-school, anti-education. Most of them didn't go to half of their classes anyway. They could be found smoking on school grounds if you knew where to look for them, or occasionally sitting in on other classes that were obviously not their own. Any sort of graffiti or damage done to the school was usually because of them. They talked shit straight to teacher's faces, and rumor had it that one of them had even shown up to school drunk before.  
Most of them had some sort of facial piercing or tattoo that they'd somehow managed to bend the law to get, and they all appeared as if they really didn't care what they looked like. They hung out with the artsy kids and the stoners, and tolerated every other group aside from mine.

I knew most of their names simply from all the times they had started shit with us, or one of the jocks had started shit with them. There was Paine, the unenthusiastic cheerleader, and her close friend Lulu, both of them juniors. Then there was Leon, a quiet senior who terrified the entire freshman population. Balthier and Fran could often be seen hanging out with them most of time, which wasn't too surprising. Last of all, there was Cloud, a blond junior who was mute as far as I was concerned.

And that was about it. I don't count the tables of anxious freshmen as anything, since they all herd together in the hallways and seem too terrified to define themselves by fashion or actions, or any of the younger kids who're either trying desperately to be cool and popular, or actually ARE cool and popular with their classmates.

"Riku? RIKU? Earth to Riiiiiku?"  
I jumped a little, making my seat squeak, and looked back to my own table in front of me. The first thing that I saw was Sora's face, waaaay too close and all up in my personal space bubble. I wrinkled my nose up and pushed his tan face away.  
"What?" I snapped, irritated.

Sora reclined back into his chair, crossing his arms behind his head and gave did that innocent shrug thing that he'd been perfecting since we were eight. "Just wanted to make sure you were still here, that's all."

I lifted a hand to brush my silvery bangs out of my face, frowning up at them. "As opposed to where?"

"Dunno. Over there, somewhere," He replied, nodding towards the vast cafeteria. "Were you staring at Lulu? Y'know, I heard she's a lesbian or something."

I snorted and looked where Sora was looking, at the table on the far end of the room, where Lulu could be seen talking quietly with Paine. "That's not a surprise," I said, turning back to Sora and propping my elbows up on our table again.

Beside me, Tidus sighed heavily. Looking over, I could see that his eyes were still focused on that far table, probably on Lulu and her low-cut shirt. "What a fucking shame that is. How come we lose all the hot ones to the fucking fags?"

"I dunno if she is," Sora piped up, also looking at Lulu again. I did my best not to sigh and rub my face. This was not a subject I gave a shit about, and the fact that it was dragging on was just annoying now. "I mean, don't gay girls dress like dudes and stuff?"

Suddenly Rikku, who had either finished her conversation with Zack or was just jumping to a new one, leaned over, pressing her hand down on the table. All three of us looked up at her curiously. "That's a dyke," She explained lowly, swirled green eyes flicking to Lulu. "Lulu is a lipstick lesbian. One gay girl takes the role of the man, and the other the role of the woman, y'know?"

"What about a lipstick lesbian with a lipstick lesbian?" Tidus asked, frowning. Rikku shook her head and he scowled. "Well that's gay. No one wants to see a girl who looks like a dude making out with a girl."

Rikku rolled her eyes. "They aren't making out for YOU, Tidus," She replied sharply and leaned back to talk to Yuna, in that quiet giggly way that girls tended to do.

"Gay," Tidus repeated, leaning back and crossing his arms across his chest, looking sullen.

"Yep," Sora agreed, picking up his fork and beginning to stab at random bits of food on his tray.

"What?"

Sora looked up, confused. "Well she is." Tidus stared blankly. "_Gay_," Sora emphasised, pointing his fork towards Lulu. Tidus continued to look confused.

"You guys are both morons," I said shortly and moved to my feet, pushing my chair back so it scraped against the tiling. Both of them looked up, and before any of us had a chance to speak, the bell went off. Lunch was over.

Sora and I had both managed to take a few steps away from the lunch table, heading to our gym class, when Tidus cupped his hands around his mouth and called after us, "Look out for the new girl!"

* * *

My first two periods were relatively uneventful, and I didn't run into Kairi until my last class of the day, which was Civics with the slightly deranged Mr. Sephiroth Crescent. He was generally a quiet teacher, but would occasionally get bouts where nothing he said made sense or applied to what he had been previously talking about. He also had some small anger management issues, but I had long since learned not to be a smart ass in his class. As long as he wasn't riled up he taught just fine.

We were twenty minutes into our lesson when the class room door opened, and a short red-haired girl slipped into the classroom. She was dressed in mostly Hollister wear, with tight, ripped up skinny jeans, a blue sweater with a black Abercrombie vest on overtop, and a pair of those Uggs boots on. She had a big tote bag thrown over one shoulder and had a few of her books clutched to her chest.

When she stepped in, Mr. Crescent stopped scribbling on the board and looked at her with a blank expression. "Yes?" He said after a moment when the girl didn't say anything.

"Oh, uhm, I'm new," She replied shyly, stepping up to him and pulling out a piece of paper, her class list no doubt. "Am I in the right place?" She asked, handing him the paper.  
The teacher looked it over briefly before nodding and handing it back He pointed towards a desk directly beside me, which was only empty because Tidus was skipping, and the girl quickly made her way over, depositing her books on it.

"Class, we have a new student," Mr. Crescent started, sounding a bit bored, and turned back to his writing as he spoke. "Please welcome Kairi Segur, who just moved from Traverse Town on the other side of the state. – Now, back to what I was saying..."

"Hi."

I looked up with mute surprise from the pointless doodles that I had been drawing along the margin line of my notebook. Slumped back in my chair, I glanced to Kairi beside me, who was offering me a friendly smile. Seeing that she had gotten my attention, she extended her hand to shake.  
"I'm Kairi," She said.

"Riku," I replied, taking her hand and shaking it a little despite the fact that shaking hands was just weird. It was something that adults did when they met new people, not something that teenagers should do.  
With that finished, we took our separate hands back. I picked up my pen and began to draw in the margin lines again.

"I'm new," Kairi said.

I looked at her blankly, trying to gauge how stupid she was. But judging by her expression, she was just trying to be witty. I cracked a bit of a grin. "I'm not," I returned.

Kairi giggled and looked to her own desk, pulling out her own note-book so she could start taking down what the teacher had already written onto the board.  
I watched with vague interest, taking in her pale skin, with her soft curving wrists that peeked out from the edges of her sleeves, to her red hair that fell just short of the middle of her back. She was pretty.

And little did I know, but this was the beginning of the end of my life.

_  
you'd better tell the homecoming queen  
to hold onto her crown  
whoa-whoa, whoa-whoa, whoa-whoa, whoa-whoa  
or she's gonna lose it to_  
_the new girl in town_

_

* * *

  
_**A/N:**  
No next chapter for this one until I get ten comments.  
3  
PLEASE - tell me what you think of how I did Riku. Any criticism would be appreciated.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N;**  
It occurred to me while I was reading through the first chapter of this that it was absolutely retarded of me to demand a certain amount of reviews. I'm super pleased so many people were genuinely interested in this even though that first chapter really didn't go anywhere.  
HEY GUYS GUESS WHAT.  
THIS DOES HAVE A PAIRING.  
Love interest is introduced. ; D

* * *

I quickly learned that Kairi was not like most of the popular girls in our grade. She wasn't ditsy, not really, though she did seem to lower her IQ whenever she was around big groups of people as if to better fit in. It was a bit strange to see someone obviously doing it, but I understood the reasoning. No one wanted to be the black sheep.

She also had a great sense of humor, especially towards conversations that most girls would have deemed 'guy conversations'. She didn't mind talking about sports, and she didn't even get too offended whenever Tidus or any of the other guys said anything especially crude around her. Hell, she willingly played video games.  
Sora took to her almost instantly (the gamer bit was a big plus in his mind) and the three of us became fast friends within the first two weeks that she had been there.

It was odd. Sora and I had been best friends since we were five, and now there was suddenly someone else joining us. It quickly turned into some sort of triangle of friendship. BFF meets BFF meets BFF. The only thing that really held back the progressive of friendship was the one secret I hid from the general population, which was something that wasn't about to change with Kairi, even if she was pretty cute, for a girl.

"Riku," Sora said, jerking me out of my thoughts. I might have jumped a little at being so abruptly interrupted if I weren't so practiced at controlling my little actions.

We were sitting in the grass way behind the art building, on the curve of a small hill. Sora was splayed out in the grass, all awkward limbs and tan skin, while I was sitting a bit more composed beside him. We should've been in English right now, but neither one of us were very fond of words, and old Cid was so absent-minded he wouldn't notice us not being there.  
It was a very rare thing to get Sora to cut class, but I had the best friend sway on my side.

I looked over at him where he was picking up small clumps of grass from the ground in an absent-minded sort of way. "How much longer are you going to keep doing this?"

I frowned a little, looking away to watch some of the junior girls playing lacrosse in the distance. "Doing what?" I asked.

Sora shifted to turn those big cerulean eyes up at me. I did my best not to look directly at him – he had some sort of mind control, puppy dog look he could do that would make me doing anything he asked. "Pretending to be something you're not," He supplied. "It's just highschool, Riku. No one's going to stone you if you finally tell people you're gay."

I stiffened slightly, but didn't look at him. "We've been over this so many times, Sora," I muttered. "Just because you're an open minded ray of sunshine doesn't mean everyone is. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that most people are not open minded rays of sunshine."

"Yeah, but... you aren't happy, Riku."

Leave it up to Sora to be blunt at the best of times. I tried not to agree with him, because denial was keeping me sane at this point. "You've been watching Disney again, haven't you?"

Sora sat up, and when I looked over at him, his face was pulled into a frown. "I'm serious! It's not healthy, hiding yourself like this. It's one thing to be in the closest, but you aren't even attempting to pursue anyone outside of school. When was the last time you even went on a date?"

I scrunched up my brow in thought, and palmed the grass on either side of me. "Took that blond out to sushi last weekend... What was her name-"

"Namine, and I meant a REAL date, Riku."

"Not sure," I said after a long moment, finally deciding to humor him. I knew he was only trying to help, but having your lack of a love life pointed out to you so harshly made even my chest hurt. "Seifer, I think... We didn't ever actually go anywhere though." I gave him a pointed look. "You know that."

Sora made a quiet aggravated noise and felt silent. He flopped back down into the grass, crossing his arms behind his head and frowned up at the blue, cloudy sky. I didn't entirely understand why it bothered him so much more than it bothered me that I hadn't ever had an open relationship – or any semblance of a relationship that had lasted more than a few weeks. A month, at the best.

We stayed mutually quiet for awhile. I tried not to start brooding too darkly, but Sora had opened a door to a whole series of thoughts that I had gotten so good at stuffing into the back of my mind.  
"You could tell Kairi," Sora piped up. When I looked down at him, he was still watching the clouds float on by. "She would be alright with it, I'm sure."

I made a non-committal noise that seemed to satisfy Sora, and he went on, starting to sound a little dreamy. "She's pretty awesome... I've never met a girl who was good at Smash Bros." I started to tune him out a little, leaning back on my palms again and tilting my head back to meet the sun. I closed my eyes.

I couldn't get the thoughts out of my head now that Sora had brought them to attention. Sure, maybe some of our friends might be alright with it, but the overall shock of Prince Riku secretly being a fag for the past three years would probably take over the majority of the school.  
Not to mention my parents... I didn't even want to think about that one yet. It was better to just keep my mask up for another year or two before I could go off to college... Not worry about what the people I've grown up would think, not having to hide boys from my parents...

But in the meantime, that mask would need to stay in place.  
"She's really pretty, too, don'tcha think, Riku?"

"Sure," I replied lazily, not really listening to Sora. He went on in this pattern for another two minutes before the bell went off and we both looked toward the school. I got to my feet and offered a hand to help Sora up, which he accepted.

"See you after class, Riku!" Sora called cheerfully a minute later as we split to go our separate ways.  
I wandered down a crowded hallway, trying not to let my thoughts get the better of me. It didn't take my feet very long to lead me to my last class.

The five minute bell hadn't rung yet, which meant that Mr. C wasn't in the classroom yet, and most of the students who were early were chatting with their friends. Kairi was in her seat next to mine already, one white ear bud headphone in her ear, the other dangling down past her neck. She had a book open in front of her, which her oddly colored eyes were focused on.  
I slipped down into my seat and watched her for a moment as she continued, despite my presence. It'd been awhile since I had a girlfriend, or shown any interest in a girl. Tidus had been hassling me for it lately, though thankfully it hadn't gotten to the point where it struck him as odd that I was so against it.

On a sudden thought, I leaned forward to pluck the ear-bud out of Kairi's ear. She looked up in slight confusion, both at the lack of her music and my close proximity. "Hey," I offered, giving her a half smile. Her face brightened considerably, and she plucked the headphone from my hand and set her book down.

"Hey, Riku," Kairi replied easily and shifted in her chair to face me instead of the front of the classroom. "What's up?"

"Do you want to go out sometime?" I shot back, keeping my smile firmly in place. She looked shocked, but her face flooded with what appeared to be excitement, and she leaned forward.

"Definitely!"

+~+~+

In high school, news traveled fast. This was common knowledge. Nothing you said was a secret, nothing was sacred. If Rikku mentioned to her cousin Yuna in the girl's bathroom that her period was late, by lunch everyone would have heard that Rikku was expecting and preparing herself to drop out.

So it wasn't any real surprise that by the time I managed to wander to my locker that most of the buzz in the hallway was about me. It was however, a bit more of a surprise to see a very pissed off Sora standing at my locker.

I had only seen Sora really, genuinely mad three times. Once when we were ten when his Dad had walked out on his Mom, once when we were six and another boy had picked on me for my long hair, and once last year when he'd stumbled upon some bullies beating on some freshman.

I tried very, very hard to not stop where I was and run the other direction. I made myself keep walking, until I was in front of him beside my locker. I gave him my best calm, don't-chew-me-out smile. "What's up?"

Sora balled up his fists, his face getting a little red at my flippant words. He ignored them entirely. "Why did you ask Kairi out?"

My face when blank, then realization dawned on me. There were people trying to subtly watch our conversation and failing miserably in the subtle area. "Because," I started, glancing at a tight knit group of sophomore girls watching with full attention. I chose my words carefully. "Because I like her. Why else?"

Sora took a step towards me and I had to pat myself on the back for not instinctively taking a step backward. Sora may be a whole head shorter than me but, he was a scary mother fucker when he was mad. I usually didn't even want to engage him when he was like this.

"Riku, I literately JUST spent ten minutes telling you that I liked her!" Sora snapped. "How could you do this to me? What am I supposed to do now?"

I did my best to play it off, shrugging a shoulder absently. A thought came to me and I managed to lean forward a little, offering a grin. "So take her," I replied. It hadn't sounded like such an asshole retort in my head, I immediately realized. But it wouldn't tarnish my track record if Kairi got snatched away from me. Granted, people might be suspicious if Sora and I remained such good friends afterward, but we could deal with that when it got to that point.

Sora looked at me like I was mental, and like he wanted to to punch me in the face. His eyebrows furrowed deep, and he pointed a finger at me. It was an inch away from my nose, all up in my personal space bubble. If it had been anyone but Sora I would have been annoyed. Judging by my current scenario, getting mad would probably only antagonize things.

"You're just dating Kairi to make yourself look better," Sora accused. I glanced at the students watching us, and looked back at him with a frown. Best friend or not, I had worked too hard for my mask to be pulled off by Sora.

I made myself scoff aloud, verbally telling him how ridiculous an idea that was. I knew he was right though. Sora knew that I knew he was right. The hard glare in his eyes proved this theory, but everyone around us was oblivious.  
"You're a fucking asshole," Sora said finally, anger dissipating into something sadder before he turned heel and stormed off down the hall.

I made a big show of looking after him with a 'what the hell, man?' kind of look, before popping open my locker. The crowd broke up while I was shoving things into my book bag, and by the time I slammed my locker closed again the hallway was mostly empty.

With less of an audience to observe and analyze my every movement, I allowed myself a moment to feel guilty. I ran a hand through my long hair, sighed, and headed towards the front doors of the school. Out front of the parking lot I found the usual group of friends who had their own cars. It was an unspoken tradition to hangout here for a few minutes, until the school-buses were gone and things had gotten calmer. Then everyone would head off to their separate cars and activities.

Kairi looked up at me with a big smile when I joined the semi-circle. Her expression faltered. "Where's Sora?" She asked, and I noticed a few more pairs of eyes to look at me expectantly.

I shrugged, and moved to fiddle with my jacket, pulling the zipper up and stuffing my pockets inside of it. "I'm not his keeper," I replied bluntly. Kairi looked at me in confusion for a second longer, before she evidently dropped the subject and turned back to her conversation with Selphie about smoky eyeliner.

I tried to follow a conversation with Zack and Yuna about some band that was coming to town soon, but failed miserably. I was faking interest pretty well until a loud roar interrupted my thoughts. A few of us looked up in time to spot the source of the loud noise. There was a man on a sleek black motorcycle tearing down the road that winded past the school. Even from this distance he looked skinny, entirely clad in black that didn't really look like leather. It was hard to tell. He wasn't wearing a helmet, which I immediately recognized as stupid, but his bright shock of unnaturally red hair was visible without it.  
"Why's he not riding a helmet?" Selphie wondered aloud, and when I glanced at her I realized that her and a few of the other girls were also watching the mysterious red-haired biker.

Kairi rolled her eyes dramatically, a foreign irritated expression flashing across her face. "Because he's a dumbass," She supplied helpfully, then pulled Selphie's attention back to the conversation at hand.

After another few minutes, the group started to break away. Kairi started to wander down the sidewalk with Selphie, since the brunette was giving her a ride home. She turned to look back at me, walking backwards. "Hey, Riku, I'll call you." She smiled big, pretty. No wonder Sora liked her.

I bit back the groan of frustration, pushing down the waves of guilt that surged over me. What the hell kind of best friend was I?

Pulling up to the curb, I flipped my phone open to peer at the text message I had received from Kairi earlier. I leaned forward to look out my window for a house number on the big, off-white two story house in front of me.  
Matching the two, I stuffed my phone into my pocket and stepped out of my car. I clicked the lock icon on my shiny BMW keys as I walked up the driveway, which was empty aside from what was probably a motorcycle of some sort. It was covered by a big black tarp.  
I didn't stop to investigate, moving up the front steps to knock on the door. I was there for only a few seconds before I heard a feminine voice call out, "I've got it!" and the front door swung open to reveal Kairi.

She smiled big when she saw me, not a hint of nervousness showing on her face. It was a bit impressive, compared to the other girls I had gone out with. There was always at least that first couple of days of weirdness while they tried to determine how much like themselves they were allowed to act around me.

Kairi held the door open wide and I stepped in, pulling my hands out of the pockets of my hoodie.

"Hey, you," Kairi said, grinning at me. She popped up to stand in front of me as I glanced around the house. Her family was well off, I noted absently. "I'm almost done. I just need to change real fast. You can look around and stuff – my parents aren't home, so you don't have to worry about running into them."

She lingered for a moment until I nodded, assuring her I would be fine in her downstairs without her, then she skipped up the carpeted steps to the second story and out of sight.

I looked around the living room. The only hints that the family had only recently moved to town were the few scattered boxes stuffed underneath shelves and furniture. Everything else was set up and looked relatively lived in.  
I wandered past the living room, eyeing the meager DVD collection in the shelves next to the flat-screen TV. On the fireplace's mantel there were framed photographs stacked, ready to go up onto the walls whenever someone had the surge of productivity to do so. The only one I could see on the top was a picture of what appeared to be Kairi in the 5th grade, with big shiny braces.

I grinned and walked up the two carpeted steps to the hallway, and looked around. If she was going to take awhile, then I might as well try to find the back door and get a smoke in. It was usually only a social thing with me – the only thing I really enjoyed smoking were clove cigarettes (which Sora ragged on me about constantly), but every once in awhile I'd feel the urge to indulge in one.

So I started off to find the back door. There was no visible glass sliding door like most houses, which was a bit strange in itself, but I didn't think too much about it. After finding the kitchen, a downstairs bathroom, and a closet, I wandered down a hallway towards a door at the very end.

No other door but this one, I reasoned, grasping the bronze knob in my hand. I could faintly hear voices, but Kairi had turned on her stereo as soon as she had gone upstairs, so I dismissed it.  
I twisted the knob and stepped forward with the swing of the door.

I immediately realized that this was not a door to the backyard, but what was probably the garage. My second realization was that this room was not empty. I looked blankly at a small group of people sitting on various couches and chairs scattered around the room. There were four people total, and three of them were currently staring at me with various degrees of shock, confusion, and amusement.

The fourth was the one that caught my attention. I heard the exhale before I saw the bong and the thick cloud of white smoke, and my eyes flicked to the only person not staring at me.  
I had never been one for metaphors, or weird figures of speech – but my heart jumped into my throat.

He was sitting in an abused looking stained green arm chair, a milky white bong clasped in his hands. His head was tilted back against the chair, exposing his pale long neck, which was littered with various criss-crossing necklaces of varying length.

He was wearing tight fitting red plaid pants, and a white zip-up hooded jacket that was pushed up his elbows, exposing the black permanent ink that spiraled up his arms, disappearing underneath his jacket.

He sputtered and the smoke cleared. The light caught the silver hoop going through his nostril, the big black stone gauges in his earlobes. His hair was pulled up in a messy 'art student meets Heath Ledger' attempt at a pony. It was an alarming shock of red.

My mind immediately went back to the tarp in the driveway, to the man with the bright red hair hauling ass past the school a few days ago, and tied the two together.

He looked at me in confusion, coughing smoke out of his nose. His green eyes were watery and locked on mine.

I was immediately head over heels.  


* * *

  
**A/N:**

SO. I'm hoping that'll make you all happier. I clarified a few things that were evidently up in the air/confusing to readers, so that makes me happy. I'm also insanely happy with the concept of Kairi and Axel being related in AU stories. I mean, REALLY, why doesn't that happen more often?

I'm sorry this is a bit short. I have 10 pages of outline written up, but I absolutely never get time to write anymore. When I finally popped this out in two hours I wanted to put up SOMETHING so no one would feel abandoned.

333 TO ALL MY READERS.


End file.
